Daily Recap — August 23

Man, I need a vacation.

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INQUIRING MINDS WANT TO KNOW

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Not really. Most of us just want to be done with this garbage. But King Bob Mueller couldn’t make Russian collusion stick, so here we are. Get used to the term “hush money” because that’s what the anti-Trump crowd are hitching their wagon to. God, things are going to be so annoying leading up to the midterms.

Here is the latest in what is sure to be a long line of stories in the new OMG DID YOU KNOW TRUMP WAS A BILLIONAIRE PLAYBOY?? series.

The National Enquirer reportedly had a safe full of damaging stories about PDT that it had killed in the lead up to the 2016 election.

The Disassociated Press reported today that the tabloid rag kept these items under wraps as part of its friendly relationship with then-candidate Trump during his 2016 campaign. The magazine endorsed Trump in the 2016 election — the first time it ever announced official support for a presidential candidate. It wasn’t all that surprising, though, given the closeness of Trump and National Enquirer executives over the years. Who do you think planted the story about Ted Cruz’s dad being in on the JFK assassination? (It was Roger Stone, actually, at the behest of the Trump campaign).

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The records related to Trump were reportedly stored alongside documents related to other celebrities’ “catch-and-kill” deals, which is an agreement in which exclusive rights to someone’s story are bought with no intention of actually publishing the story. Not to be confused with Clinton catch-and-kill deals, which involve suicide via 2 bullets to the back of the head.

But the AP notes that the documents kept in the safe soon became a cause for concern after The Failing Wall Street Journal first published details about Playboy model Karen McDougal’s catch-and-kill deal before the election.

American Media Inc. (parent company of National Enquirer) CEO David Pecker and the company’s chief content officer, Dylan Howard, then removed the documents from the safe weeks before the inauguration, but it’s unclear according to AP reporting if the documents were destroyed or moved to a different location..

McDougal is suing the National Enquirer over its ownership of her story about her alleged affair with PDT. She’s also sought public admission from the company that it was working on behalf of PDT or his associates with the goal of silencing her.

She has alleged that AMI — as well as her lawyer at the time — misled her about the deal, which led to her accepting $150,000 for rights to her story before the company withheld it as part of a catch-and-kill.

“AMI lied to me, made empty promises, and repeatedly intimidated and manipulated me,” McDougal said this past March.

For his part, PDT has repeatedly denied the affair.

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NOW FOR THE BAD NEWS:

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Prosecutors granted immunity to Pecker this week as part of their investigation into Michael Cohen’s business dealings. As you’ll recall, Cohen pleaded guilty to eight federal charges on Tuesday, including violating campaign finance law, which he said he did at Trump’s direction, though he did not name PDT outright.

Pecker met with the prosecution to discuss Cohen’s involvement in Trump’s hush-money deals with women leading up to the 2016 presidential election.

Pecker has emerged as a central figure in the “hush money scandal.” Last month, Fake News CNN released audio of PDT and Cohen discussing payment to McDougal, in which Cohen apparently references Pecker, telling PDT that he needs “to open up a company for the transfer of all of that info regarding our friend David.”

Pretty odd how that conversation was being recorded by Cohen and the election hadn’t even happened yet. Makes one wonder just how long Cohen has been trying to take Trump down and who has been working with him to do so.

According to the WSJ, Pecker’s information seems to have informed the prosecutors’ charging documents. The payment was completed a few weeks before the 2016 presidential election and Cohen said that he did so at the behest of “a candidate for federal office.”

Along with the $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels, Cohen admitted to completing an $150,000 “illegal contribution,” which is in all likelihood a reference to McDougal, since it’s the same amount paid by the Enquirer.

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BIG PICTURE:

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As I and many others have been saying all week, the legal case here is flimsy at best.

If a candidate for public office decided to settle a private lawsuit to get it out of the news before Election Day, would that be a campaign expenditure? If a business owner ran for political office and decided to pay bonuses to his employees, in the hope that he would get good press and boost his stock as a candidate, would that be a campaign expenditure, payable from campaign funds?

Under the theory that Michael Cohen violated campaign finance laws by arranging hush-money payments to women accusing PDT of affairs, the answer would seem to be yes. Does that seem like sound logic to you?

Regardless of what Cohen agreed to in a plea bargain, hush-money payments to mistresses are not really campaign expenditures. It is true that “contribution” and “expenditure” are defined in the Federal Election Campaign Act as anything “for the purpose of influencing any election,” and it may have been intended and hoped that paying hush money would serve that end. The problem is that almost anything a candidate does can be interpreted as intended to “influence an election,” from buying a good watch to make sure he gets to places on time, to getting a massage so that he feels fit for the campaign trail, to buying a new suit so that he looks good on a debate stage.

That’s why another part of the statute defines “personal use” as any expenditure “used to fulfill any commitment, obligation, or expense of a person that would exist irrespective of the candidate’s election campaign.” These may not be paid with campaign funds, even though the candidate might benefit from the expenditure. Not every expense that might benefit a candidate is an obligation that exists solely because the person is a candidate. In other words, PDT may very well have paid those women off regardless of whether he was running for POTUS.

Suppose, for example, that Trump had told his lawyers, “Look, these complaints about Trump University have no merit, but they embarrass me as a candidate. Get them settled.” Are the settlements thus “campaign expenses”? The obvious answer is no, even though the payments were intended to benefit Trump as a candidate.

If the opposite were true and they were considered campaign expenses, then not only could PDT pay them with campaign funds, but also he would be required to pay these business expenses from campaign funds. Is that what campaign donations are for?

But let’s go in that direction. Suppose PDT had used campaign funds to pay off these women. Does anyone much doubt that many of the same people now after Trump for using corporate funds, and not reporting them as campaign expenditures, would then be claiming that Trump had illegally diverted campaign funds to “personal use”? Or that federal prosecutors would not have sought a guilty plea from Cohen on that count? And that’s the problem with these campaign finance laws. They can be made to fit whatever agenda is being pursued, even though it may not hold up in court.

Yes, those payments were unseemly, but unseemliness doesn’t make something illegal. At the very least, the law is murky about whether paying hush money to a mistress is a “campaign expense” or a personal expense. In such circumstances, we would not usually expect prosecutors to charge the individuals with a “knowing and willful” violation, leading to criminal charges and possible jail time. Ninety-nine percent of the time, a civil fine would be the normal response. But not for PDT. He’s treated differently at every station.

And Cohen is not the normal defendant. Prosecutors squeezed the living hell out of him to plead guilty on these charges, all for the purpose of building a case for impeachment charges against the PDT.

One might even say that they’re trying to — GASP — influence the elections.

The thing about impeachment, though, is it requires a high crime. It also requires a 2/3 Senate majority vote to actually convict and remove from office. Neither of those things are present currently and don’t look to be on the horizon.

This is nothing short of a political hit job carried out through our legal system. I hope the Trump administration is prepared to fight this garbage. It’s going to be a long, hard haul, but the facts and law are on our side.

Just hang in there folks. It’s going to be rough for a while.

Also, never trust a Pecker not to screw you.

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TRUMP VS THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT

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Those of us who have been trying to give Jeff Sessions the benefit of the doubt are having our faith tested….mightily.

PDT took it to the DOJ today, echoing everyone in his base as he lashed out at its selective prosecution of Paul Manafort and pointed out the painfully obvious double standard favoring Dims.

“There’s such corruption. Before I got here, it’s from before I got here. It’s from the Obama administration,” he said.

Keebler Jeff Sessions was quick to respond to Trump’s remarks, much quicker than he would ever be to respond to, say, abject corruption within his own justice department.

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“While I am Attorney General, the actions of the Department of Justice will not be improperly influenced by political considerations,” Keebler said. “I demand the highest standards, and where they are not met, I take action.”

In the interview that aired this morning, PDT criticized Keebler, who he said “never took control of the Justice Department” and turned a blind eye to the misdeeds of Dims.

PDT pointed out double standard at play in the prosecution of his former associates, such as how Manafort was prosecuted while Clinton-ite Tony Podesta still walks free as a bird.

“Look at the crimes that (Hillary) Clinton did, with the emails, and she deletes 33,000 emails after she gets a subpoena from Congress, and this Justice Department does nothing about it. And all of the other crimes that they’ve done,” PDT said.

Also to the delight of those of us who actually know something about what’s been happening over the last year, he highlighted the outrage that is the case of Imran Awan, a former technology adviser to Rep. Debbie WhatsItGoingToTakeToGetHerInJail Schultz and other House Dims who was tied to an ongoing investigation into equipment and data theft.

He then confirmed my personal theory on that case:

“He had all the information on Democrats, he had all the information on everybody. He went to jail holding the hands of the Justice Department and the FBI. They sat there together. They were smiling and laughing. He got nothing.”

Awan was sentenced to time served on Tuesday for lying on a loan application, adding just one more giant slap in the face of everyone who actually believes in the antiquated notion of “equal justice.”

The judge in his case noted that Awan had been subject to “accusations lobbed at him from the highest branches of the government, all of which have been proved to be without foundation by the FBI and the Department of Justice.”

Oh yeah? So there wasn’t classified information being improperly moved from House servers? The person who moved into Awan’s old house didn’t find equipment he destroyed? Debbie Schultz’s lap top wasn’t found in an old phone booth at midnight specifically so the police would recover it? The year-long Daily Caller investigation into the Awan case is full of lies?

I doubt it.

And so does PDT:

“The reason he got nothing is because the Democrats are very strong in the Justice Department,” Trump said. “I put in an attorney general that never took control of the Justice Department, Jeff Sessions.”

PDT went on to reiterate his feelings on Sessions and the decisions he made immediately upon assuming office, saying he would not have appointed him if he knew he would recuse himself from overseeing King Bob’s investigation into Russian interference.

“He took the job and then he said ‘I’m going to recuse myself,'” Trump said. “I said, ‘what kind of a man is this?'”

“And by the way, he was on the campaign,” Trump continued. “You know, the only reason I gave him the job is because I felt loyalty. He was an original supporter.”

In response, Sessions took credit for moving the Trump agenda forward at the DOJ:

“I took control of the Department of Justice the day I was sworn in, which is why we have had unprecedented success at effectuating the President’s agenda,” Keebler retorted.

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Things got more interesting when Sen. Twinkletoes Graham, a close ally of PDT on the Hill ever since his home state of South Carolina sent his NeverTrump buddy Mark Sanford packing, said he expects PDT will fire Sessions “sooner rather than later.”

“The president’s entitled to an attorney general he has faith in, somebody that’s qualified for the job, and I think there will come a time, sooner rather than later, where it will be time to have a new face and a fresh voice at the Department of Justice,” Graham said. “Clearly, Attorney General Sessions doesn’t have the confidence of the president.”

Of course, the problem with that is as soon as PDT canned Keebler, the Dims would immediately launch into “red line” talk and claim that it’s all about ending the Mueller probe. And spineless Republicans will cave right away. At least half of them want to cave. They want PDT out of D.C. just as badly as the rest of the Swamp so they can have their good ole boys club back.

I would be shocked if they even confirmed Sessions’ successor.

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BIG PICTURE:

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Look, I know how many eye-rolls and groans I elicit by saying this, but we can’t write off Keebler just yet. The fact is, there are several investigations ongoing behind the scenes into all sorts of stuff. FISA abuse, the Clinton Foundation and Uranium One are among the avenues of investigation currently apace. He has also appointed a federal prosecutor, John Huber, to handle the cases as they (hopefully) bear fruit.

Is that a foolish hope? Maybe, but the fact is none of us can say with 100% certainty that nothing is happening in the other direction. The fact is there are things happening and we just don’t know what will come of it yet.

Until then, it would be dishonest of me to say that all is lost and Keebler is a bust. That may be true, but we simply don’t know. And if there’s anything sorely needed today in our public discourse, it’s people who aren’t afraid to admit what they don’t know.

Go ahead and throw stuff at me if you like, but I’m gonna say the same thing I’ve been saying since inauguration day — we’re going to have to stay tuned.

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REALITY MEETS REALITY

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Finally, a feel-good story to warm up to.

Reality Winner, the 26-year old NSA contractor who leaked a Top Secret flow chart dealing with Russian interference in the 2016 election to Glenn Greenwald and the boys over at the Intercept, has been sentenced to 63 months in prison plus 3 years of supervised release as part of a plea deal.

She initially faced 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine, but accepted a plea deal after seeing just how bad she was at leaking and how much evidence the government had as a result.

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“She’s a good person,” said her attorney, John Bell. “Someone who didn’t understand the magnitude of what she was doing.” Bell also pointed out that Winner was a first-time offender who had wanted to serve her country.

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Pro tip: If she didn’t understand the magnitude of what she was doing, it’s just more evidence that she had no business working in the building in the first place. We all sign nondisclosure agreements on our first day in the schoolhouse and the penalties for violating the Espionage Act are spelled out to us in no uncertain terms.

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For example, on my first day in Corry Station, we watched a corny faux “news cast” with anchors talking about all the possible punishments for leaking top secret info. In one clip, a person is shown in an electric chair. It made quite the impression on me at the time. Then again, I wasn’t a leftwing moonbat so I never had intentions of breaking the law anyway. I took my clearance seriously with or without legal threats.

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Winner was a federal contractor working with Pluribus International Corp. right here in Augusta, GA with TS/SCI (Top Secret/ Sensitive Compartmentalized Information) clearance when she leaked information that served as the basis for the June 2017 Intercept article. The document she leaked detailed a classified NSA memo that contained information about a Russian cyberattack on a supplier of US voting software supplier.

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It’s important to note that what she leaked was a mere assessment. There was no actual evidence of the things being described, just an overview of what supposedly went down. And that “compartmentalization” thing? It’s the fundamental operating principle of the intel community. It means you stay in your lane and only receive info that is necessary for your mission. This memo had absolutely nothing to do with her linguist mission, which begs the question of just how the hell she came into possession of it. A friend of mine who currently works in the building told me that it was downloaded from a public drive, which means anyone with a high side clearance had access to it. If so, that is some piss poor operational security and it needs to be fixed immediately.

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Upon downloading the document, Winner printed it and mailed it to the Intercept. When the Intercept contacted the NSA, saying it had what appeared to be a classified document, the outlet provided a copy, which appeared to have been folded or creased.

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That led to an internal audit that revealed that Winner was one of just six people who had printed the document and the only one who had email contact from a desk computer with the news outlet.

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The leak was undoubtedly politically motivated. She had previously criticized PDT in the lowest of ways on social media. When it became clear that PDT would win on election night in November 2016, she posted, “Well. People suck. #ElectionNight,” before launching into a rant calling Trump an “orange fascist” and “orange orangutan.”

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And while Winner didn’t explicitly post about hacking or leaking, she followed Edward Snowden and WikiLeaks on Twitter, where she used an account with a pseudonym, but used a photo of herself as the profile picture.

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A friggin genius, man, I tell you.

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BIG PICTURE:

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NSA…..Please listen to me and write this down:

THE ABILITY TO LEARN MULTIPLE LANGUAGES IS NOT GOOD ENOUGH JUSTIFICATION TO ISSUE A CLEARANCE. I UNDERSTAND THAT LINGUISTS COME AT A PREMIUM FOR CERTAIN LANGUAGES BUT THAT’S NO EXCUSE TO KEEP SOME FAR LEFT MOONBAT INSIDE THE BUILDING.

I can’t even begin to tell you how damn embarrassing this is. Hopefully, her sentence will deter future Snowden-wannabes as well as spur reform in the way clearances are issued. They probed every damn aspect of my life. How did this idiot slip through the cracks?

Man, I need a drink.

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AN ACT OF COURAGE

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Sometimes, PDT reminds me of why I voted for him by doing something that no other president ever would. I had the joy of seeing one of those moments once again, this time in the form of a late night tweet.

PDT has ordered Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to “closely study” the South African government’s land seizures from white farmers.

“I have asked Secretary of State @SecPompeo to closely study the South Africa land and farm seizures and expropriations and the large scale killing of farmers,” PDT tweeted.

As usual, he was reacting to a segment on Fox News, this time a report on moves by South Africa’s government to begin the process of unilaterally seizing farms after negotiations with the owners to buy the properties stalled.

Here is the segment to which he was referring:

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In response, South Africa’s official government Twitter account said the country “totally rejects this narrow perception which only seeks to divide our nation and reminds us of our colonial past”.

“South Africa will speed up the pace of land reform in a careful and inclusive manner that does not divide our nation,” it added.

There’s nothing like seizing land based on skin color to unite the country and abandon a colonial past.

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THIS ISN’T A “WHITE NATIONALIST CONSPIRACY THEORY:”

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Contrary to what the media would have you believe, PDT isn’t the first to point out the problems in South Africa. His comments echo those of Australia’s former home affairs minister Peter Dutton, who in March made OMG RACIST headlines by saying white South African farmers faced “horrific circumstances” and needed help from a “civilized country”.

Then there are the actual victims, like Brisbane-based mortgage broker and South African expat Arno Nel, whose parents were literally friggin tortured in a farm attack five years ago, who said it was “great that the world is taking note of what’s going on in South Africa”.

“We want (the US) to warn South Africa about the path they are taking and to say to them, if they go down that path that sanctions can follow,” he said. “It needs to be a stern warning with a penalty attached, that’s what we would like to see.”

Mr Nel said he feared a civil war. “I’m concerned that it can happen,” he said. “South Africa has a very, very violent history. It’s a violent country.”

The community activist said frustrations were “boiling over” because expectations among the poorer black community that things would change after 1994 had not eventuated. As it turns out, the government doesn’t have a magical cure to create equality.

“In 1994 the whites had 90% of the wealth. Today it’s less than 50 %,” he said. “To say they haven’t been sacrificing is not correct, but they are feeling there’s no future anymore, not for anybody in South Africa.

“So they are now organising themselves into groups to defend themselves, they are arming themselves. If this gets out of hand it will be worse than Zimbabwe because there are more hungry people, more farmers, and just the culture of violence that has been created over many years.”

On Sunday, local newspaper City Press reported two game farms in the northern province of Limpopo appeared to be the first targeted for unilateral seizure.

Johan Steenkamp and Arnold Cloete, co-owners of the Akkerland Boerdery hunting farm, were ordered to “handover the farm’s keys to the state” late last year after refusing an offer of one-tenth the land’s value.

The owners wanted 200 million rand ($20.8 million) for the land but were offered just 20 million rand ($2.08 million). If the seizures go ahead, it would be the first time the state refuses to pay market value for land.

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HOW WE GOT HERE:

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Since the end of apartheid in 1994, the ruling African National Congress has followed a “willing seller, willing buyer” process to redistribute white-owned farms to blacks.

That process has been slow — a 2017 government audit found white people still owned 72% of private farmland in South Africa, despite making up less than 9% of the population. It turns out people don’t come running to the government to hand over their land in the name of “justice.” Who knew?

Still, amid growing pressure from the radical Marxist opposition group known as the Economic Freedom Fighters, the ANC made expropriation without compensation a key pillar of its policy platform late last year.

ARE YOU READING THAT, LEGACY MEDIA? IT’S PART OF THEIR OFFICIAL DAMN PLATFORM. THAT’S NOT A HALF-BAKED CONSPIRACY THEORY.

It’s not just a political platform, though. The South African government is pushing ahead with plans to amend the country’s friggin constitution to make that process easier, and has targeted a number of farms for seizure “to test out” the current laws.

Under the existing constitution, land can be expropriated in exchange for “just and equitable compensation”, or without compensation when “in the public interest,” all completely up to the government’s judgment, of course.

The Department of Rural Development and Land Affairs has reportedly drawn up a list of 139 farms targeted for this purpose, but has refused to reveal details.

ANC spokesman Zizi Blowdart attempted to play down investor fears, saying earlier this month the proposed seizures were “tied to addressing the injustices of the past.”

Oh, well in that case, you’re right. No need to worry, white farmers who have poured your lives into your farms. It’s just to correct the past!

“Over time I think the markets as well as investors will appreciate that what we are doing is creating policy certainty and creating the conditions for future investment,” he said with a straight face.

Civil rights group Afriforum subsequently released what it claimed to be a leaked list of 190 farms “being circulated in the department”, sparking vehement denials from the government. “We don’t know where they got it from,” a spokeswoman said. “There is no truth to this document.”

Seeing as how the SA government refuses to release details of the plan that they, themselves have announced would be going forward, I think I’ll take Afriforum’s word on this one.

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A RAY OF HOPE:

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On Tuesday, the farming groups AgriSA and Agbiz announced that senior ANC officials had vowed to protect property rights at a “historic” meeting. AgriSA said “specific policy commitments” were made.

Those included that “no land grabs will be allowed”, “the protection of productive agricultural land will remain a priority” and “property rights will remain a key priority in agrarian development”.

In a media release, the AgriSA said “all agreed that those factions who are purposefully polarizing society with regards to land question, should be resisted”.

However, AgriSA chief executive Omri van Zyl said the discussion did not directly address expropriation without compensation.

“It was a general discussion which has laid the foundation for the future,” he said. “It is pretty clear the party is worried about the impact of the land debate on the private sector and investors.”

It’s no coincidence that this meeting took place shortly after South Africa’s state-owned Land Bank warned expropriation without compensation could trigger 41 billion rand ($3.9 billion) in default payments.

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BIG PICTURE:

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The truth is, black South Africans have sought revenge against white farmers for decades for the sin of colonialism. And the fact that they’ve had since the early 90’s without institutional racism to blame for their failures hasn’t made a difference.

This is akin to the “social justice” movement here in the U.S. It sounds great on paper, as most Marxists concepts do, but it’s a depraved, disgusting ideology in practice.

The South African government is going to have to choose between caving to its Marxists (a group that proudly and correctly claims Nelson Mandela as one of their own) and economic/societal collapse. And with the recent tweet from The Donald, they can now throw the risk of sanctions and diminished trade relations with the U.S. to the list of downsides of this barbaric practice.

We’re not allowed to mention when whites are singled out for mistreatment. The media immediately pull the race card in an effort to stifle the truth. Thank God this president doesn’t cower from that old tactic. Thank God facts are more important than narrative.

Thank God for PDT.

Hang in there, South Africa. All hope is not lost.

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